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When there are real-life comebacks on TV, why watch crappy ones in the movies?

Kim Hollis: The Comebacks, not to be confused with The Replacements, the movie it is so transparently copying, earned $5.9 million from 2,812 play-dates. This total represents a per-venue average of $2,080. Are you disappointed by the result or surprised that something this atrocious looking could earn even this much?

David Mumpower: Both. The Replacements was a huge hit on home video, particularly during the early days of DVD. Its success in DVD rentals made it one of the earliest success stories for the format. I speculated it would eventually receive a straight-to-DVD sequel as a way to capitalize on the unexpected financial windfall it proved to be. The Comebacks postured itself to be exactly that sort of film straight down to aping the slutty cheerleader shtick. For whatever reason, mainstream audiences recognized an inferior clone when they saw it. Earlier this year, a couple of studio execs were speculating that The Comebacks would be just as big a surprise hit as The Benchwarmers ($57.7 million domestic gross). I think it's safe to say those aspirations were...overly ambitious.

Reagen Sulewski: This film looked like garbage, plain and simple. Even Date Movie had the decency to have more than two kinds of jokes in the trailer, instead of just the one (COLLISION! NOW LAUGH!) that this one did. Asking "That guy" from Anchorman to carry your movie is probably a mistake too.

Kim Hollis: Yeah, I'm really stunned it made even as much as it did. It looked just awful and had no real stars to hang its hat on. I like the Anchorman dude just fine, but he seems better off as a supporting guy for Will Ferrell (or in quirky roles like he had in Thank You for Smoking).

Joel Corcoran: The real tragic aspect of this movie is that it demonstrates there is still a large segment of the American populace who will pay good money to go see crap like this.

Max Braden: I think even fans of the spoof genre were so put off by Epic Movie (which is the comparison I kept making) that they were gun-shy about paying to see this in theaters. Expect higher dvd rental figures from those late night stoned dorm kids just looking for something stupid to watch.

Oh boy! It's a gloomy movie about the war in Iraq!

Kim Hollis: Rendition, the opener with easily the most star power this weekend, failed to pique the curiosity of mainstream audiences, earning only $4.2 million from 2,280 locations. This is a per-venue average of only $1,856. Why do you believe North American audiences continue to reject any and all premises that involve Iraq War-related themes?

Dan Krovich: I'd be very nervous if I had an Iraq themed movie coming out that had any kind of substantial budget to make back. I think audiences are already sick of seeing news coverage about it much less paying to see a movie about it.

David Mumpower: The very nature of cinematic entertainment is to provide escapism from the real world. Titles such as Home of the Brave, In the Valley of Elah and this bravely examine subject matter that is uncomfortable for most would-be movie goers. It's no surprise, then, that such endeavors are dismissed by consumers. They are by definition art-house releases intended for a smaller segment of movie buffs who don't mind such depressing subject matter. In the case of Rendition, it's obvious that the lackluster reviews combined with the off-putting storyline combined to work as an antidote for the star power involved.

Reagen Sulewski: I don't think it's a blanket problem with all movies that could be connected to Iraq, but it definitely needs to be the right kind of film about the topic. Jarhead, for instance, came out right as public opinion started to turn against the war. If it appears to be a moralizing film, as this one was, then that's not going to get but a scant few people out.

David Mumpower: Jarhead was slightly different in that it hid its true nature in the marketing campaign. The movie was shaded as much more of a "Our soldiers kick ass!" release when it was in reality a subversive exploration of what's went wrong with the military-industrial complex. Also, Jarhead had something going for it that would be borderline impossible to duplicate, and that's the ingenious Jesus Walks trailer. No other Iraqi/Guantanamo movie is going to catch lightning in a bottle like that.

Kim Hollis: There were a couple of problems for Rendition. First, it looked grim, which is never a positive. The only way that can generally be overcome is through positive reviews. This one didn't have those, either. If audiences could trust that a film dealing with Guantanamo would at least be interesting or filled with great performances, it might be different. It's a tough sell in any case.

Joel Corcoran: I think David pretty much nailed it - movies should be about escapism. Rendition would be much more palatable to the public if it was released in another 15 years, but the concept of "rendition" is either too vague or too angering right now. I doubt even half the people in the U.S. even understand what "rendition" is, and those that do know are either angry with the Bush Administration for carrying out these renditions, or angry and vitriolic at those who protest the rendition programs. The social and political climate is just too raw and chaotic right now for a movie like Rendition to take hold. People are simply too close to these current events to appreciate a film on its own - independent from those ongoing events.

I think you can draw an analogy to The Lives of Others, a German film about Soviet-era monitoring programs carried out by the East German secret police. It's been over 15 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and that distance from those very ugly events has allowed a better (and more informed) perspective that a public audience can appreciate in this film. But there is no way The Lives of Others could've been a successful film while those monitoring programs were still ongoing (even if the Soviets had allowed it to be made).

Max Braden: This was the biggest surprise for me this weekend. I really expected Rendition to win out, given the presence of Witherspoon, Streep, Gyllenhaal, and Sarsgaard - who got a lot of praise for Jarhead. Reviews, however, were not strong, and may have affected audiences who would have been more interested in the story than the actors.

I've seen a lot of ads for Lions For Lambs, which I think is nearly the same story in viewers' minds. The poor performance of Rendition won't help Cruise's pic. Maybe audiences will still go to see if he snaps and flips out on Streep.

There were movies in theaters this weekend?

Kim Hollis: Including Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour and Things We Lost in the Fire in addition to the titles previously discussed, there were four titles this weekend that opened in over 1,000 locations that had per-venue averages of $2,080 or lower. Anything under $2,500 used to be the line of demarcation for a disastrous performance, one where any box office receipts earned barely pay the cost of the movie prints. Last year, we didn't see 10 such performances the entire year. How do you explain the volume of ignored titles we saw this weekend?

David Mumpower: The explanation is the same point we have been driving home the past couple of years. Box office is much more of a sink or swim phenomenon than it once was. Even 10 years ago, going to the theater was still the primary way for the average consumer to spend a weekend evening. With the advent of new technologies such as networked videogames, TiVo, and the video iPod, movies are no longer the only ballgame in town. Competition for the free time of consumers has reached unprecedented levels, and the impact of that on the movie industry is simple. People won't go see any old piece of garbage at the cost of $7.70 a ticket on average. There has to be a justification for them to leave the house, and we saw several titles this weekend that failed to offer this incentive. Hollywood knows it as well. Several titles under discussion this week were effectively unadvertised. There was no point for studios to the money on products they knew to be inferior. This behavior has been in place all year, but the once-a-decade quality of the summer schedule hid this problem in plain sight. Lots of movies were stillborn upon theatrical release. They simply didn't get much attention since there were such big stories to discuss each of those weekends as they failed. This problem is systemic in the industry, and steps need to be taken to address it head on.

Reagen Sulewski: A couple of these were from startup studios, who simply didn't have the bucks to promote their films to justify a release of this level. Sarah Landon and The Ten Commandments, for instance, were films that never should have been considered for theatrical releases - they just looked that awful. I suppose these becomes expensive advertisement for the DVDs. But really, there were just too many films on this weekend. There's enough attention to go around for two or three films at the most on a single weekend. Anything more than that just means that the other films are going to get completely lost in the mix.

Kim Hollis: Audiences are getting better and better at smelling out garbage movies. There are still times when we wonder what people were thinking, but a lot of times, if the product isn't good, it just underperforms. Gone are the days when any stupid idea could get a greenlight.

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